My granddad died a few weeks ago. He had been sick for many months. I did not witness his decline first hand, but I heard through my mom.
I remember lying on the floor listening to my Granddad and Mom tell stories, everything from teaching experiences to the latest family drama. He notices me perusing a book of his many hundreds and tells me that if I find something I like I should take it. I'm a good kid, so I insist I could never do such a thing, but he persists. Take whatever you want, Lisa. They're no use to me, I've read them all before. He was just generous with other things as well. He gave my sister and I however much we wanted one year when we visited in December to buy each other gifts for Christmas. He also gave us a 200th anniversary book of Peanuts cartoons, which I still treasure enormously. He gave gladly and often, so that he died with very little money to his name. In a last act of generosity, he insisted that the money from his stocks be divided evenly between his children, even those whom had recently and needlessly hurt him without apology, the details of which I won't go into here. This will (hopefully) allow my mom, sister, and I to visit Europe next summer before Amy and I are too old and settled to travel with Mom. We think of and thank him often.
Several years ago, he almost died from an excruciating kidney stone. My mom flew up to Maine to be with him while he recovered in the hospital. She was by his side or within shouting distance the entire time. She washed her clothes in the sink and hung them in granddad's closet. She washed in the shower that came with his room, and when that wasn't available, she washed her face in the bathroom sinks. She had to live on food from vending machines when the cafeteria was closed. All this she endured just to be with him in his time of need, because none of her brothers and sisters could come every day to the hopistal (it was quite a ways away from everyone). Dedication and sacrifice - such is the power of a daughter's love.
Before this tragedy, he had been overweight and an alcoholic. Now, he was neither. The following summer I saw him and had to keep from gasping aloud at the transformation. He had lost much weight in hospital that he never gained back. He looked good for his age, though his face was more wrinkled and he wore a scraggly white beard. He was happy painting, reading, and gardening in his cabin, which my uncles built for him by hand, in Maine on one uncle's property. He was excited to serve us grapes, cheese, and crackers, a dinner fit for a king. He moved slower now, with a cane, but he was still autonomous. He still had his sharp wit and his senses. Though there were times he got lonely, he spent much time with my uncle's family and the Bowdoinham community. He was even thoroughly accepted at a woman's book club with my uncle, who is still a crazy pot-smoking rebel, though he is now a grandfather himself.
When my mom told me that Granddad was dying, just after spring break, I insisted that she and Dad let me skip a week of classes to go to Maine and visit him with her and my sister (for the first time I found myself thankful the work was so easy to make up). I am SO GLAD I made that trip. It was a very trying time for all involved, but the time I spent with my granddad, to make him happy even for a short time, was incredibly worth it. He was living then with my other aunt and uncle who reside in Maine. He looked much worse than I'd ever seen him before. A lifetime of alcohol overindulgence was finally catching up with him. His body was slowly shutting down. He could not control his bowels. He moved painfully slow and required a walker, though he stubbornly insisted that he could move on his own. His hearing was almost all gone, and I had trouble speaking so he could hear me properly. His eyes looked sunken and sad. He was small and stinky and lonely and he lashed out at the people who were doing the most for him because his mind was finally going. He would make mean remarks about my aunt, who was his biggest advocate. The woman who was working full-time on illustrating a children's book, and packing up all her things for a big move, and being hostess to us, and battling demons of her own, still spent more time and energy than anyone caring for him. He was so out of it that he could not understand why they didn't pay him more attention, spend more time with him. He had no idea that constantly needed assistance and cleaning-up. As my uncle said, he had no idea of his effect on the world around him.
It was hard to be with him, but it gave me the deepest satisfaction to listen once more to his stories. I wanted to see him smile again, to be flocked to instead of avoided. It hurt to see the rest of my family so frustrated with him that they often pretended he wasn't there, too tired to deal with him. And it hurt me to see him hurt them with such careless, callous words. I finally had an opportunity to discuss philosophy with him as I've wanted to do for a long time, and I fairly burst with pride when he complemented one of my philosophy term papers. And because I was new and a guest, therefore I did not have to clean up after my granddad, whenever he was around I spent as much time with him as I could, telling jokes and asking him to tell me stories or explain something about a famous philosopher or saint. (My grandfather was a life-long devout Catholic and liberal Democrat. Take that, stereotypists!) Besides spending time with him, I hoped that I was making things easier for my poor uncle, who was always exhausted from finishing up a house he was building by hand, and my aunt.
I mentioned that we shared jokes? My Grandad had a wonderful sense of humor, and whenever he saw us he'd always have some new joke up his sleeve. But his favorite of all time, which he couldn't get through without cracking up, went like this: a woman and her infant were on a train, and the infant was crying. A man came over to give the baby some food to make her feel better. The man is shocked to see the ugliest baby he's ever beheld, all wrinkly forehead, red, crying eyes, big chin, and sharp angles. So he offers the food to the woman, "Here, would you like a banana for your monkey?" (I don't get it either, but I love how much he loved that stupid joke.)
If I have any regrets, it's that I never got to say a final goodbye to Granddad. I went out for a night walk the last day we were there, and while I was out he had to go to bed. I stupidly did not bring my cell phone, so when I got back it was too late.
My granddad died peacefully in my uncle's house on June 4, 2009. It's been very hard watching my mom grieve the loss of her father, with whom she was very close.
As kids, my mom and her siblings used to toast the great philosophers each morning. Socrates! they'd shout, and take a drink. Plato! Aristotle! Then, Dad! And they’d splash a fingertip wet with OJ in the air. Cheers, Granddad. Tell me someday what the ancients have to say about that.
Happy Father's Day, Granddad. Whenever I read one of your books, which you finally convinced me to take, I think of you. We love you, miss you, and think of you often. <3
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